ABSTRACT
Eliot ruefully told Belknap that Boston men were volunteering in droves to work on fortifications if it would forestall being recruited for a Canadian campaign. Unfortunately, the parish selectmen responded with a token gift of twenty pounds, called a meeting to discuss the matter, but postponed the meeting throughout the spring, summer and autumn, not deigning to join together to deal with the issue until the following year. As Belknap's father Joseph made recurring trips to Boston to visit old friends and deal with old business, John Eliot grabbed him and hoisted a number of letters he had written to Joseph's son, so that in mid-May Jeremy received an epistolary cornucopia. Because it was incumbent upon ministers to be historians, to trace providential history, Belknap felt compelled not to give up his task. The antiquarian spirit of historical inquiry was the mutual interest that had initially drawn the two men together.
